Inacruate handling times by shipping early
Dear Amazon God's,
This was
already discussed here in the forums.
Please make this make sense. What is wrong with shipping as soon as possible? Isn't that what "delight the customer" means—by under-promising and over-delivering?
I will continue to ship as soon as we can and let the chips fall where they may.
Inacruate handling times by shipping early
Dear Amazon God's,
This was
already discussed here in the forums.
Please make this make sense. What is wrong with shipping as soon as possible? Isn't that what "delight the customer" means—by under-promising and over-delivering?
I will continue to ship as soon as we can and let the chips fall where they may.
20 replies
Seller_0EiTWTPC4Lbig
We do exactly the same thing. If we can ship an order today instead of tomorrow, we're going to ship it today. We believe that's the right thing to do for the customer.
Personally, I'm not overly concerned about this notification. It seems to be one of those policies that, on paper, doesn't align well with real-world operations.
We have excellent account health metrics, outstanding delivery metrics, and consistently ship earlier than promised. I have a hard time believing Amazon is going to penalize sellers for providing a better customer experience.
You've been selling on Amazon long enough to know there's often a difference between how a policy is written and how it's actually enforced. Until I see evidence that sellers with otherwise excellent performance are being meaningfully penalized for shipping early, we'll continue to ship as quickly as possible.
Delighting the customer has always been our priority, and I don't see that changing.
KJ_Amazon
@Seller_8sP6ffckcRn6v
As that notification says: handling time settings will only be automatically adjusted to match your actual performance if our analysis shows that over a 30-day period you're consistently shipping one day faster than your current handling time settings. When this happens, Amazon isn't penalizing sellers for shipping early. Instead, the system is marking delivery promise settings for consistently being too conservative and potentially affecting sales.
Our policy is geared towards increasing delivery promise accuracy while allowing sellers the flexibility to manage their settings if they consistently need additional handling time.
More accurate settings show customers a more competitive promise and improve conversions.
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
Yes, they ARE punishing sellers for shipping early.
Why can't Amazon understand??? Many of us can, and want to, ship early most of the time. But there are times where it is IMPOSSIBLE. We sometimes need the 2 day handling time; IT'S NOT OPTIONAL.
So unless you tell us that, after Amazon forces us to 1 day shipping, that there will never be any penalties whatsoever, and that items shipped on the 2nd day are still covered for INR, then forcing us to 1 day IS A PUNISHMENT.
If this is such the great thing that Amazon keeps telling us it is, why would you need to force it on sellers? We already have the option to change our handling time to a shorter time. BUT LET US RUN OUR BUSINESS!!!
So what you are forcing us to do is to delay shipping, so that customers get their items a day later, just so that, when something comes up (for example, I won't be able to ship tomorrow), we can handle it without disappointing a customer by not shipping on the promised schedule.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
As that notification says: handling time settings will only be automatically adjusted to match your actual performance if our analysis shows that over a 30-day period you're consistently shipping one day faster than your current handling time settings
As other have stated this sounds great, but what happens when there is an order where you need the full 2 days handling time?
Does it really, We have shipped 100000's of items and never once gotten feedback that stated the item was promised in 2 days and we got it in 3.
In our experience customers want their orders delivered in good condition in a reasonable amount of time.
Seller_kWzASERYhgus6
Being punished for good performance is now part of life at Amazon apparently.
Twelve of my BEST SELLING ASINs "at risk" for being assigned to AHT. Of course it is the best sellers, BECAUSE THESE ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE DELIVERY HISTORY. Looking forward to having my $8 and $9 items forced to ship overnight due to stupid forced delivery promises.
I changed the handling time from 1 to 0 days, hoping to clear the violation. Amazon support wanted me to send them 'justification' for how my manual handling time reflects my actual handling time, including all kinds of data THAT AMAZON ALREADY HAS - obviously because they used it to calculate the "violation"
All we can hope is that regulators see how Amazon is treated FBM sellers like employees and we all get compensated - like what has happened in the rideshare industry. /sarcasm
Committing my business to a delivery promise against my will sure does seem sketchy.
Seller_z1JDNz6de1lqc
This is so Amazon will soon start forcing you to pay more shipping. When we see stuff like this all it does is motivate us to focus on selling on alternative less abusive platforms.
Seller_q9QRK21aDA2Fl
If you download the handling time report and filter on all that are non compliant, I think you will find there are some odd calculations. I have a case open, I set my HT to 1 day at sku level, default is 1 day, I ship within 1 day, but Amazon is promising 2, 3 and 4 days then saying I shipped way too early.
Seller_r9wMm8LrE5iKj
Just to make sure you understand, "chips fall where they may" could be "account put on hold" and eventually "account closed".
Amazon is being specious when they say "When this happens, Amazon isn't penalizing sellers for shipping early." The calc for turning on AHT is different than the calc for shipping late, and you could get put into a place where you can't meet the metrics (unless of course you pay Amazon a bunch of money to screw things up even more by switching to FBA, which is what this monopolistic action is really all about).
Plus, the calcs are simply wrong. For my low-volume products, I can simply compare what Amazon is reporting and suggesting vs. my actual handling time.
I hope KJ realizes (and cares) that by parrotting the Amazon line when it's patently, provenly false, he's simply losing credibility within the fora. I understand if you have to shill for a living, but you don't have to go out of your way to do so.
